A teenager who dreamed of becoming a preacher was shot in the head in what residents last night described as an increasingly vicious "postcode war" between rival gangs.

Jonathan Matondo's body was discovered behind a basketball court in a park in Sheffield on Wednesday night. Yesterday his uncle, Armand Vibila, speaking hours after identifying the body, broke down as he said his nephew had been "too young to die".

"He was such a good boy, so funny, this should not happen to our community," he said.

Last night neighbours in the Burngreave area of Sheffield said there had been a running gun battle between two gangs in the hours leading up to the killing, with one group chasing the other into a nearby park, firing shots.

Resident Robert Smith, writing on the website of the Burngreave Messenger, said one group of youngsters barricaded themselves in a house in nearby Melrose Road as a rival gang opened fire. However, it appears that police were not called to the area at this stage.

"Today in Burngreave we have reached a new level in an inner city internal warfare that is seeing young people firing guns as though playing a video amusement game with life. Killing the innocent and involving those never before involved in their issues or disputes," Mr Smith wrote.

He said the death had left the community "shocked and very angry".

The Rev Jacques Kinsiona, a preacher at the Light of Christ Church, said Jonathan had been a regular churchgoer until two months ago. "Jonathan was a great person - he had been to our church and one day he asked and said, 'Reverend Jacques, I want to be a preacher', and I said yes."

Neighbours said Jonathan, known locally as MC Venemous, had been caught up in a postcode war between rival gangs. One man who lives close to the park agreed that the shooting was related a feud between two groups of youths from different areas.

"It is about gangs. It's that simple. It's S3 versus S5 versus S4. This was all about one lad from one area winding up those from another area. I've also heard that it was an argument over as little as £50."

Another resident, advice worker Douglas Johnson, said: "This is what happens when drug-dealing activity goes on. Kids get involved and start playing with guns. It's a very sad case. It's very shocking."

Sheffield's police commander, Chief Superintendent Jon House, insisted Sheffield was "safest city in the country," adding that armed officers would patrol the area in the coming days to reassure local people. He said it was the third fatal shooting in the city in the last 18 months.

Mr House said that information from the public would allow police to "make arrests shortly". But asked if the killing was linked to a gang feud, he refused to comment.

Despite the police reassurances, people in Burngreave insisted that they face a growing problem with gangs and drugs. A woman whose shop overlooks the park where the teenager was killed said she was not surprised by the latest shooting. She said that Jonathan was a "polite" boy but said she feared that some of his acquaintances were "into drugs".

The woman, who said she did not want to be named for fear of reprisals, described the area as "a ghetto". "It's got bad. You can get drugs and guns round here pretty easy now."

Another resident, Diane Johnson, who has three sons and a daughter, said the killing had "left a deep sense of shock in the community".

"Do I want to be here any more?" said Ms Johnson, who has lived in the street next to the park for nine years. "I have a nine-year-old son and I just don't know if it is safe for him round here, but I don't know what to do."

Yesterday's killing happened less than a mile from the scene of a shooting in March in which a 53-year-old taxi driver was killed.

A father of five, Younis Khan, 53, was shot as he drove along Scott Road, in the Pitsmoor area of Sheffield.

The neighbouring Burngreave, Pitsmoor and Spital Hill areas have witnessed a number of shooting incidents in recent years, although police and council leaders always insist Sheffield does not have a gun problem on anything like the scale of cities such as Manchester, Nottingham and London.

Around the country

The shooting of a 16-year-old boy in Sheffield is the latest in a worrying trend of teenagers being killed around the country.

The number of youngsters who have been shot and killed, particularly in London, has prompted concern about how to tackle the problem.

Four days ago, student Philip Poru (pictured top left), 18, was shot dead as he sat in a silver Ford Fiesta with an 18-year-old friend near Woolwich Common, Plumstead. He was the 21st teenager to die of gun or knife crime in London this year.

Two months earlier Nathan Foster, 18, was shot by an armed motorcyclist in Brixton, south London. Billy Cox and Michael Dosunmu (above right), both 15, and 16-year-old James Andre Smartt-Ford were all killed by guns within a fortnight in south London in February.

In Liverpool, Rhys Jones (top right), 11, died after he was shot while walking home from football training in Croxteth on August 22.

In Manchester, three teenagers have recently been killed by guns. In April Kasha Peniston, then aged 16, shot his sister Kamilah, 12, in the head with a handgun his mother kept in their home in Gorton. Kally Gilligan (above left), 15, was shot dead by her jilted ex-boyfriend, Josh Thompson, 18, in Salford in June last year, and last September Jessie James, 15, was shot dead as he cycled through a park in Moss Side.Press Association